As an aviation journalist, I covered the press conference from DAT/SN Brussels Airlines this morning. Here some info to avoid false rumours.

x Africa Flights. Normally the airline starts flying to Africa before Eastern. It will be a wetlease operation. No decision made yet about the operator. BMI is in the running but it's, according to president Kuypers, not the only candidate. If there is a possibility a Belgian solution will be choosen. But i don't think this will happen.

x Merger witht Virgin Express. Merger study is progressing. By the end of this month we will know more (a yes or a no) about this.

x Codeshare was anounced on flights Brussels - London City (VLM is the partner)

x The new name. SN Brussels airlines was invented by the french group Minale Design strategy. They invented before names like Belgacom, BBL, Quick, Eurostar and the corporate look of EADS... This the challenge : 'SN Brussels airlines will be 'an innovative business airline effectively fulfilling the needs of time and price sensitive travelers and connection Brussels like no other'

They had two name options: a new name or a name reflecting the core business of the airline. For cost reasons only the second option was possible. In total they had 50 suggestions. SN Brussels Airlines was elected for several reasons.

SN reflects the airline code. This code is on the tickets, screens in the airports, etc.... For this reason they wanted to keep the code in the name. Otherwise nobody would understand the link between the code and the name of the airline. They have choosen for Brussels and not for Belgium because in the international press is always mentioned Brussels and almost never Belgium. For example: the CNN speaker says very often 'joining us now from Brussels Nato Headquarters'...

And the airline will be the airline with focus on flights from and towards Brussels.

Mr Kuypers expects that at some time in the future people will say Brussels airlines and forget the SN 'prefix'. At least they hope people will do this.

Eurostar is the name of the high speed train linking London to Paris and Brussels. Eurostar was NOT an option for the new DAT name. The company that invented the SN Brussels Airlines name also invented the Eurostar name.

Brussels is choosen because of the core business of the airline. It's flying out of and towards Brussels and it doesn't want transfer pax. Brussels is the European capital, hundreds of multinationals and institutions have their headquarters in the city. Brussels is in many countries better known than Belgium. Especially in the foreign media.

Belgium has some negative connotations (dutroux, scandals, ...), Brussels is less spoiled by this.

Chairman Rob Kuypers only mentioned a codeshare on the new VLM Brussels-London City route.

As 'Brussels Airlines', I don't think they are going to fly from Antwerp.

It's strange for me that they don't fly Brussels-London City on their own with an Avro Jet. Former

Sabena CEO Christoph Mueller used to say that you have to operate an Brussels-London City route (lots of business pax) with the biggest aircraft type that can land on the short city runway... Times changed clearly. Now they will operate it with VLM and a small Fokker 50...